Limited features? I wonder how limited.
I'd say enough for ~3 months of contents, after that it's blurry, but you would hit the ceiling if you're in it for a ~ year. Either-way, you would still be part of the of the fleets and big battles unless you're in some v.v.v. elite and niche pvp or pve groups.
Many of the bigger alliances will let you in and find a role for you in battle. There are also alliances focused on new players solely. The community is alot more friendly as far as teaching newbs is concerned vs CN, the community strives and helps newbs get the hang of it. It's not toxic like OWF tbh.
There are also, many many ways to play it. You can be a miner (mine resources), industrialist (build stuff), PvPer (pew pew, best part, this is where all the political drama and big battles are for which Eve is famous), PvE (farming and ratting etc, running missions, incursions (think of it as doing raids/dungeons), trading (buy low, sell high), spying (seems that every major alliance has spies in every major alliance, so good drama at times) etc etc.
I mostly do PvP, I fund those adventures through PvE and trading.